Sunday, October 21, 2012

Skylanders Giants Released!

Wow, the BIG day is here for the new GIANTS release. I didn't bother to preorder as I kind of figured that they would have lots of stock on release day after the little "we're all sold out fiasco" that happened last Christmas. I went down to the nearest Toys R Us with a hyper-excited youngster and found a 50 or 60 person line already there when the store opened this Sunday morning at 11 AM. Lots of people in the line had preorders and some were only in the line to get the Toy R Us exclusive Skylanders. Marketing works!

Tree Rex Giant on Portal of Power

The line went pretty quickly and people were chatting in line in a friendly manner about the different Skylanders figures or their trauma about not being able to get any last year. Many parents were there getting the stuff for Christmas as they had such a hard time getting the stuff last time. It was hard to tell if some people were getting it for the kids or if they were the BIG kid (and there is nothing wrong with that either!). I was there as I do kind of like the game and I can play the kid card to boot! This is a great little collectable game with the figures and a pretty fun and entertaining game to boot that you can play co-op. The kids that were there were going nuts about the wait, which only lasted about 20 minutes or so.

The staff were friendly and they had all the checkouts in the electronics department working full tilt and had staff escort overflow to special outside tills to ring stuff through. When we walked through the GIANT cardboard Skylanders gateway we snagged a PS3 starter without the portal that includes the giant life Skylander Tree Rex. There were lots of expansion kits and extra figures kicking around in big bins. There was no shortage of any figure and they could have easily satisfied twice the number of people in the line. I picked up a whack of stuff that will be rationed out over the next month.

An initial assortment of the new Skylanders.

The new GIANTS are pretty cool and BIG. In game, they take up a good chunk of the screen too. Not all of the original Skylanders are making a comeback in this second game, but the ones that do get a very nice makeover. All of the figures are fancier than the first time around and some even tempt me to re-buy a few of them as their poses, equipment, and bases are so much fancier. Did I mention that the GIANTS now have glowing parts and eyes when they are on an active base in-game - with no extra batteries required?

The initial reviews of the game and my limited play so far indicates this is a good new expansion to the franchise and I look forward to playing through the game with the kids. A western Pokemon type hit at last and I see that the trading cards have finally arrived!